Mr Davis was delighted to launch the new Acceler-8 programme to students in the Year 8 assembly this week. He will be encouraging students to “pick up the P.A.C.E” with a focus on Passions, Achievements, Community and Expectations throughout assemblies, tutor times and wider activities,

He is excited about is the opportunities for the students in Year 8 to create, develop and lead on their own ideas. From the initial meeting of interested students, there are already some promising plans in the pipelin so look out for more news soon on what our wonderful Year 8 students have been up to.

We look forward to welcoming Year 7 students and parents to the Sausage Sizzle tonight, Friday 16th September from 6.30pm-8pm. All profits raised will go towards equipment and activities to support students across the school in their learning. 

All Year 10 Drama students will take part in a practical workshop with the acclaimed theatre company, Complicité, on Tuesday 18th October during sessions 3, 4 and 5. This will take place in the Drama studio. Please ensure students bring a packed lunch on the day, or if they receive free school meals they can go to the canteen for their lunch as normal and bring it back to Drama. 

A request from Student Services to please label all items (uniform, sports wear, water bottles etc.) Lost property already has a large number of items which have been left around the school. If your child has lost something this term, please ask them to go along at break and check the cupboard by Student Services. Items are kept for two weeks before they are disposed of/given to charity so they have a much greater chance of being reunited with their owners if they are clearly labelled. Thank you!

This week’s whole school theme is Inspirational Figures. This theme was planned prior to Queen Elizabeth II’s death last Thursday but it provided an excellent opportunity for us to reflect on the Queen’s inspirational life. In her 70 year reign Queen Elizabeth was impeccable, both professionally and personally. Her steady leadership, her capacity to inspire hope and her dedication to stability and peace will be greatly missed. The students received an excellent assembly from Deputy Head teacher, Mr Nicholls, that highlighted the Queen’s dignity and grace. We are extremely grateful for the inspiration the Queen has provided to the school community and hope she rests in peace.

Herts County Youth Auditions

Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra and Hertfordshire Schools’ Symphony Orchestra are inviting students of Grade 7 standard and above to audition to join. Click here for further information on how to submit your audition video.

Instrumental & Vocal Lessons

Thank you for your patience as our instrumental and vocal teachers return to teaching. There are still some new students awaiting confirmation of a place with Herts Music Service. We have no further information on this – so please bear with them whilst they work through these applications. You should hear directly from HMS to confirm details of your child’s first instrumental or vocal lesson.

Enrichment Activities

We have had an outstanding week of attendance at our extra-curricular music groups this week and it has been lovely to see so many new students getting involved. It’s not too late to take part – just come along or sign up on SOCS!

Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended the Year 12 Information Evening this week, we hope that you found it useful. The presentation can now be found on the school website here.

We look forward to welcoming the parents of Year 13 students to their Information Evening on Tuesday 20th September at 6.30pm.

They say good things come in threes and this is true for Conrad from 8A who features in our Student Spotlight this week. Conrad carried out his third litter pick of the year around the local area during the summer holidays, collecting a total of three bags of rubbish and recycling.  Also, as well as passing his grade 3 trumpet exam, he achieved Honours in his ballroom/Latin exams for the Waltz, Quick Step, Rumba and Jive.  His first partner competition was cancelled in March 2022 due to the pandemic but he is now working towards one coming up in a few months. Well done Conrad- amazing to see you excelling in lots of different areas.

If you would like to nominate someone for the Student Spotlight next week, please send a few lines and/or a photograph detailing what they have done in the community, sports, the arts, academically or any other areas where they have gone above and beyond to Melissa.holian@sandringham.herts.sch.uk

Year 7 have made a fantastic start to the year and are really beginning to settle into the school community. Their attendance at extra-curricular clubs has been incredibly impressive, from Basketball and Football to Warhammer and Science club – they’ve really been getting stuck in. A special mention to 7S, who have had a great two weeks with house points, and particular congratulations must go to Mahathishri V who has achieved a whopping 29 house points already. Absolutely fantastic! Pictured here are 7T in Computer Science getting to explore the amazing functionality of their new Chrome books.

We look forward to welcoming families in on Wednesday evening to our Peak District Trip Information Evening where we will hear about all the excitement that the trip will have in store.

Thank you to all parents who attended the German Exchange Information last night. We had a great meeting and look forward to welcoming 25 students and their teachers Frau Kranz and Frau Horn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer Gymnasium, in Quickborn Hamburg next week. We have a varied week planned for them and know that our students will make them feel very welcome.

In other MFL News, Year 10 Spanish twilight sessions have also got off to a lovely start with some delicious cakes. Thank you Sean and Sara for providing them

Students are encouraged to take part in our latest House Competition. The D&T Faculty are asking for your HDPE bottle tops to be dropped off to B4 to be used in fun projects such as melting them down to make coasters, pendants or keyrings. You can watch the youtube video using the QR code in the image above.

The individual with the most collected bottle tops will win 50 house points, and the house with the most collected bottle tops in total will win 50 house points. Please put them in a plastic bag and label which house they are from and who you are too. 

Good luck- may the best house win! 

Well done to all the Y7s who participated in their first Sandringham sporting opportunity this afternoon at the annual Mob Race. The course was 2.3km around Sandringham and Wheatfields School and we had a fantastic turnout of students and parents. As mentioned in the Headlines, the overall winners of the girls' race was Beaumont School and the overall winners of the boys' race was Verulam. At Sandringham the individual winners were :

Girls: 1st Nell M, 2nd Astrid L-J, 3rd Megan C

Boys: 1st Lucas H, 2nd Toby R, 3rd Ben R

A huge well done to everyone who took part and represented our school so brilliantly.

This week we enjoyed welcoming prospective parents to the school for our Open Morning Tours. Students from Years 8 and 10 acted as guides, showing parents around the school and answering any questions they had about life at Sandringham and hear a brief talk from Mr Gray. Our remaining tours are on Tuesday 20th, Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd September. If you know of anyone interested in attending, please ask them to call Reception and book a space. 

Are you interested in using your business or industry experience to mentor a Young Enterprise company at Sandringham School?

This rewarding role for a parent/carer would be to advise and encourage the students to reflect while they learn new skills. The students make all the decisions about their business, from deciding on the company name, managing the company finances, creating a product and selling to the public, but you would be a sounding board and would be there for general advice.

If you are available Thursday 8.50-9.50 each week during term time and keen to be Sandringham School’s new Young Enterprise Business Advisor, please contact sally.griffithsplunkett@sandringham.herts.sch.uk for more information. The scheme runs from now until Easter, and you would not have to come in every week, just as and when is convenient. We would love to hear from you!

In line with the school’s travel plan we know that most students now walk or cycle to school. We would remind families of students who do need to use cars to and from school to respect local parking restrictions. These include prohibited areas on the Ridgeway and parking areas in the immediate vicinity of the school. We have been asked by the management of Park Side View (on Chiltern Road) to emphasise that ambulances frequently need to access the building and that this has proved difficult recently at school during drop off and pick up. Your ongoing support is much appreciated. Thank you.

This week Hepworth lead the way for house points with Austen and Fawcett not far behind. Special mention goes to Alice W in 8H who received the most house points this week (14) and 7S for the highest average house points this week (19). 

For house points overall, Shakespeare now take the lead with 1498 at the time of publication and Fawcett on 1378, Hepworth on 1356. 

Students will have participated in their first House Quiz this morning on the theme of Inspirational Figures so check for more updates next week.

We are aware that several of our students in Year 9 and 10 are studying additional languages out of school as native speakers and may be interested in sitting a GCSE later in Summer 2023. Although the exact timeline of next summer’s exams has yet to be confirmed, we would be grateful if initial expressions of interest could be emailed to fleur.baikie@sandringham.herts.sch.uk stating the student name, tutor group and the language they are studying which they wish to be examined in.

The deadline for expressions of interest is Friday 7th October. After this date we will not be able to investigate entries for Summer 2023.

Once we have all the requests, we will work with families to see if we can accommodate them. Thank you.

In the Summer Term last year, Year 7 (current Year 8), studied poetry about refugees as part of the Identity unit. The English faculty organised a collection of boxes of teabags  in conjunction with Herts for Refugees. We were delighted this week from Angus at Herts for Refugees. Here is what he said

We also had a very special donation from Sandringham School, in St Albans. You may remember the thousands of biscuits they donated in 2020..? Well, they complimented it this year with thousands of tea bags..! We delivered them all to our friends at Refugee Community Kitchen, who make literally gallons of tea every day. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed…

Massive thanks again to everyone who brought in boxes of teabags during the collection- they have been gratefully received and are being put to good use.

FRENCH: Le mot de la semaine: obstiné

GERMAN: Die Wort der Woche: dickköpfig

SPANISH: La palabra de la semana: obstinado/a

Thinking Questions

• An interlanguage is when people speak a mixture of two languages – how do these come about? How do these affect the development of the two original languages that have become mixed? 

O is for… obdurate [adjective]

Definition: Stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or course of action.

Example: I argued this point with him, but he was obdurate.

Synonyms: Adamant, Dogged, Firm

Antonyms: Amenable, Gentle, Submissive

Etymology: Derives from the Latin word ‘obdurare’. From ‘ob’ meaning in opposition and ‘durareme’ meaning harden.

Our senior boys football team began their season this week with an away trip to Haberdashers Boys School in the first round of the county cup. A great footballing performance saw us run out victorious. Goals from Hotti x2 Watters, Latter & Choudhury.

Our Cross Country season is off to a great start after Thursday afternoon's meeting at Townsend School. Special mention to the inter and senior girls' teams on great performance. Well done to all involved.

The 2022-23 Netball season started with an impressive 44-11 win for the U15 Netball team in round one School Sport National Cup! OPM - Charlotte H & CPM - Sophia P

Please see above for the list of fixtures this week. You can follow @SandringhamPE for updates. 

A superb effort from the Sandringham 1st XV boys this afternoon against a well organised Roundwood Park. Sandringham eventually lost 47-12 but showed some promising play in all areas

Welcome to THE DARK ROOM – the world’s only live-action, text-based adventure game. It’s strange, insane and addictive – it’s a choose-your-own-adventure, so choose it!

How do you play? The audience is trapped in a retro videogame with a sadistic end-of-level boss. Choose your options, survive the abuse simulator that is the improv comedy overlord John Robertson, and escape to win £1000 – or, be brutally murdered by the rest of the crowd!

Tickets £10.00 – £12.50

A fun-filled, sugar-fuelled, family-friendly pantomime adventure that reminds us ALL not to take candy from strangers (even if they wow you with a fabulous song and dance number!)

Join ‘Hansel and Gretel’ in a new take on an old favourite; with tasty tunes, magical mayhem, and colourful characters (including a 7-foot yeti!) it’s simply not to be missed!

“Absolutely Incredible” – BBC Three Counties Radio

“Hilarious, Modern… an absolute delight” - Bedford Today

Tickets £12.50-£15

Tickets are available now at www.hanselandgretel.co.uk

All the latest performances are on our website, www.sandpittheatre.co.uk, and you can keep up to date with what’s going on by giving us a follow either on Instagram & Twitter or give us a like on Facebook, just search for The SandPit Theatre!

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The box office is open from 11.30am – 3.30pm Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Alternatively, you can call us on 01727 799565 or visit www.sandpittheatre.co.uk

John Robertson’s terrifying, live-action videogame 'The Dark Room’ now comes with a family-friendly flavour! Part stand-up comedy show, part theatre; all interactive and insane - this award-winning, genre-defining, mixture of improv comedy and retro gaming all combines to become a deranged rock n’ roll game show – now suitable for ages 11 and up. Families will find themselves trapped inside a live-action videogame!

‘You must see the Dark Room at least once in your life’ ✭✭✭✭✭ The Sun

‘Genuinely irresistibly dangerous’ ✭✭✭✭ The Stage

Tickets £8

Little Red Riding Hood’s friend arrives to tell us the story but has a problem, there are no pages in the book! He tries to tell the story and we meet Red Riding Hood’s mum, dad, and grandma but he keeps getting the story wrong. So, Cinderella arrives to help, dancing a conga with her Jack’s Baked Beans Band and suggests auditions to find the Wolf to end the story.

There is lots of participation in this theatre show, with the audience becoming Cinderella’s backing band, auditioning to be wolves, helping Red Riding Hood’s dad cut down trees and dancing a conga.Tickets £7/£5